Broadcast Transmission
Broadcast traffic is used to send packets to all hosts in the network using the broadcast address for the network. With a broadcast, the packet contains a destination IP address with all ones (1s) in the host portion. This means that all hosts on that local network (broadcast domain) will receive and look at the packet. Many network protocols, such as DHCP, use broadcasts. When a host receives a packet sent to the network broadcast address, the host processes the packet as it would a packet addressed to its unicast address.
Some examples for using broadcast transmission are:
- Mapping upper layer addresses to lower layer addresses
- Requesting an address
Unlike unicast, where the packets can be routed throughout the internetwork, broadcast packets are usually restricted to the local network. This restriction is dependent on the configuration of the gateway router and the type of broadcast. There are two types of broadcasts: directed broadcast and limited broadcast.
Directed Broadcast
A directed broadcast is sent to all hosts on a specific network. This type of broadcast is useful for sending a broadcast to all hosts on a non-local network. For example, for a host outside of the 172.16.4.0/24 network to communicate with all of the hosts within that network, the destination address of the packet would be 172.16.4.255. Although routers do not forward directed broadcasts by default, they may be configured to do so.
Limited Broadcast
The limited broadcast is used for communication that is limited to the hosts on the local network. These packets always use a destination IPv4 address 255.255.255.255. Routers do not forward a limited broadcast. For this reason, an IPv4 network is also referred to as a broadcast domain. Routers form the boundary for a broadcast domain.
As an example, a host within the 172.16.4.0/24 network would broadcast to all hosts in its network using a packet with a destination address of 255.255.255.255.
Play the animation to see an example of a limited broadcast transmission.
When a packet is broadcast, it uses resources on the network and causes every receiving host on the network to process the packet. Therefore, broadcast traffic should be limited so that it does not adversely affect performance of the network or devices. Because routers separate broadcast domains, subdividing networks with excessive broadcast traffic can improve network performance.